Police back off report that Cardinals GM Steve Keim lied about job

Cardinals general manager Steve Keim was cited for driving under the influence Wednesday in Chandler, Arizona, the team announced Saturday.
Time

Arizona Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim identified himself to a Chandler police officer as the team's director of security when he was arrested July 4 on suspicion of DUI, according to a newly released police report.(Photo: Rob Schumacher/azcentral sports)

Editor's note: This story has been updated following the release of additional information from the Chandler Police Department.

A Chandler police report claimed that Arizona Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim misidentified himself as the team's director of security when he was arrested July 4 on suspicion of DUI.

But police on Wednesday walked back that assertion after viewing footage from the officer's body-worn camera. In a statement, the department said the officer would correct the police record.

"After reviewing the BWC (body-worn camera) footage, Mr. Keim stated that a person by the name of (Shawn Kinsey) was their director of security and that he worked for the Arizona Cardinals," the statement said.

The report obtained Tuesday morning by The Arizona Republic said Keim's eyes were bloodshot, his speech slurred and his breath smelled of alcohol when an officer pulled him over early July 4 just several properties down from Keim's home in the tony Ocotillo neighborhood.

Keim told another officer that he had been "bouncing around" that night and recently left a friend's house. He claimed to have had two beers while eating pizza about an hour or two before being stopped, according to the report.

After he was placed in handcuffs and brought to Chandler police headquarters, he said he had been drinking beer since 4 p.m. and had about two IPAs in the hour before driving home.

The officer who stopped Keim said in his narrative that he first noticed Keim's black 2018 Ford F-150 about three miles before the traffic stop.

Other takeaways from Keim's arrest report:

He declined to perform several steps in a sobriety test due to a knee injury.

He would not submit to a breath test, so officers took two vials of his blood, which will be tested for blood-alcohol content.

He was previously convicted of DUI in 1996.

He was cited and released from police custody without being booked into jail.

"Arizona is a place, especially the metro Phoenix area, where anybody can get a DUI," said Russ Richelsoph, a Tempe-based attorney who has been defending DUI cases for 19 years. "You can be a police officer, you can be a mayor. You can be a doctor or a lawyer. It really doesn't seem to matter if you're famous or well connected, they're going to treat you the same."

Richelsoph said Keim's previous DUI conviction won't have any bearing on the current case because it's more than seven years old. What will matter is that Keim described himself as a "three" on a scale of one to 10 — with one being completely sober and 10 being completely intoxicated — according to the police report.

"Admitting he's a three, a prosecutor will use that as evidence that he is admitting impairment," Richelsoph said. "The problem is, when you answer that way — the way that Arizona DUI law reads — if you're impaired to the slightest degree by alcohol or another substance, that's DUI."

Arizona law says a person is driving under the influence if they are at all impaired or have a BAC of 0.08 percent. Extreme DUI requires a BAC of 0.15 percent or above. Super-extreme DUI means a person has a BAC of 0.20 percent or above. Penalties vary.

Keim's blood-alcohol level will be determined in a lab and could take three months to process.